Dad's Army (TV Series 1968–1977) - IMDb IMDb There was an error trying to load your rating for this title. Some parts of this page won't work property. Please reload or try later. X Beta I'm Watching This! Keep track of everything you watch; tell your friends. Error During WW2, in a fictional British seaside town, a ragtag group of Home Guard local defense volunteers prepare for an imminent German invasion. Creator: After a surreal lecture on telling allied parachutists from German ones, the platoon is ordered to pick up a stranded U-boot's crew. Wilson feels live hand-grenades are too dangerous for his hot-head... 8.9 At long last Corporal Jones is marrying Marcia Fox. He asks Mainwaring's permission as his commanding officer, which involves the captain being caught over the phone by his wife having coffee with ... 8.8 It is revealed that Private Godfrey was a Conscientious Objector in the First World war, leading Mainwaring and some of the platoon to brand him as a coward. However, during an exercise in which ...

8.6 a list of 33 titles created 13 Oct 2012 a list of 34 titles created 26 Jul 2013 a list of 35 titles created 28 Jan 2014 a list of 21 titles created 30 Nov 2014 a list of 33 titles created 26 Dec 2015 Search for " Dad's Army " on Amazon.com Connect with IMDb Title: Dad's Army (1968–1977) 8.1/10 Want to share IMDb's rating on your own site? Use the HTML below. You must be a registered user to use the IMDb rating plugin. 1 win & 9 nominations. See more awards » Photos The misadventures of a ragtag group of elderly Home Guard local defense volunteers at the onset of WW2. Director: Norman Cohen The prison life of Fletcher, a criminal serving a five-year sentence, as he strives to bide his time, keep his record clean, and refuses to be ground down by the prison system.

Stars: Ronnie Barker, Brian Wilde, Fulton Mackay The Walmington-on-Sea Home Guard platoon deal with a visiting female journalist and a German spy as World War II draws to its conclusion. Director: Oliver Parker Arkwright is a tight-fisted shop owner in Doncaster, who will stop at nothing to keep his profits high and his overheads low, even if this means harassing his nephew Granville. Arkwright's ... See full summary » Stars: Ronnie Barker, David Jason, Lynda Baron Long running BBC comedy show consisting of sketches and humourous musical routines involving the large Ronnie Barker and the small Ronnie Corbett. Most sketches involved both men, but ... See full summary » Stars: Ronnie Barker, Ronnie Corbett, The Fred Tomlinson Singers Classic 1960s British comedy series about a middle aged man and his elderly father who run an unsuccessful 'rag and bone' business (collecting and selling junk). Harold (the son) wants to ... See full summary » Stars: Wilfrid Brambell, Harry H. Corbett, Frank Thornton Accident-prone Frank Spencer fails to navigate the simplest tasks of daily life, while also trying to look after his wife and baby.

Stars: Michael Crawford, Michele Dotrice, Jessica Forte Victor Meldrew is a retiree who attracts bad luck. If he's not driving his long suffering wife Margeret crazy with his constant moaning, he's fighting with neighbors. Stars: Richard Wilson, Annette Crosbie, Doreen Mantle This prison comedy is based on the popular British television series of the same name. Long time Slade prison inmate Fletcher is ordered by Grouty to arrange a football match between the ... See full summary » Director: Dick Clement Popular sitcom set in a seedy bedsit lorded over by the mean, vain, boastful, cowardly landlord Rigsby. In each episode, his conceits are debunked by his long suffering tenants. Stars: Leonard Rossiter, Don Warrington, Frances de la Tour The comic adventures of a group of misfits who form an extremely bad concert party touring the hot and steamy jungles of Burma entertaining the troops during World War II. Stars: Windsor Davies, Melvyn Hayes, Donald Hewlett In 1967 actor Jimmy Perry shows his friend David Croft the script of a sitcom he has written based on his time in the Home Guard, entitled 'Fighting Tigers'.

Head of BBC TV comedy Michael ... See full summary » Director: Steve Bendelack Edit Storyline Popular BBC comedy series set in the fictional south coast seaside town of Walmington-On-Sea during World War 2. Alternating moments of gentle character comedy with broad slapstick, it recounts the misadventures of the local voluntary defence force (or 'Home Guard') consisting of men too old or 'unfit' for military service. They are led by the pompous Mainwaring, manager of the local bank, and consist of the suave, mild-mannered Sergeant Wilson , Lance-Corporal Jones, the town's butcher and an old soldier prone to hysteria, cockney spiv Walker, dour Scots undertaker Frazer, gentle, elderly and incontinent Godfrey and dim-witted mummy's boy, Pike, whose mother is 'friendly' with Wilson. They are based in the Church hall where there is much friction between Mainwaring, the effeminate Vicar, his creeping Verger and ARP Warden Hodges (the grocer) who calls Mainwaring 'Napoleon' and strongly dislikes him.

The 80 episodes (the last 68 made in colour) have been frequently repeated, many are ... Written by Allen Dace <a.w.dace@maff.gov.uk> 31 July 1968 (UK) See more » Also Known As: Daar komen de schutters See more » Filming Locations: Did You Know? Trivia An episode is kept on standby by the BBC for use as an emergency backup program, to be broadcast if a major technical problem prevents normal programs being shown. This came to light on June 20, 2000 when the BBC Six O'Clock News (1984) was interrupted by a power failure at the BBC, and an episode of Dad's Army was transmitted in its place. See more » Goofs Throughout the series LCPL Jones is the only member of the platoon to wear medal ribbons on his uniform. Frazer, Wilson, and Godfrey (and possibly others) all saw service in WWI and would have medals and ribbons, and would most likely have worn them proudly as well. See more » Quotes [They are telling off a cheeky young boy] Jones : Ere. I know him. He's a cheeky little monkey.

He comes into my shop when it's full of persons and shouts out, "Sainsbury's." Pike : Yeah. And he runs into our bank and shouts out, "National Provincial." My favourite comedy series of all time 6 November 2002 | by BritishFilms1 WARNING: This review contains spoliers "Dad's Army" has got to be my favourite comedy series of all time. It is about the adventures of a Home Guard platoon on the South Coast of England during World War II. Pompous bank manager Mr Mainwaring [Arthur Lowe] is Captain of the platoon. He is assited by his chief clerk Arthur Wilson [John Le Mesurier] who is the Home Guard sergeant.

The other main characters who formed the platoon were 70 year old devoted solidier Lance-Corporal Jack Jones [Clive Dunn] who fought in the Sudan under the command of General Kitchener during the 1880s, James Frazer [John Laurie], a doom-and-gloomy old Scotsman who runs an undertakers in Walmington-on-Sea [the town where the series is situated], who was formerly a Chief Petty Officer in the Navy [my favourite character], retired Menswear salesman Charles Godfrey [Arnold Ridley], the platoon's medical orderly who lived in a country cottage with his sisters [Dolly and Cissy], Cockney "spiv" Joe Walker [James Beck] who was usually seen with various lady friends and was well-known for being able to obtain rationed goods for people [if they paid him for them] and finally, Frank Pike [Ian Lavender], the youngest member of the platoon who was very much a "mummy's boy" and usually made a mess of things, Mainwaring was often heard to describe him as a "stupid boy".

Another regular character was the Chief Air Raid Warden, Mr Hodges [Bill Pertwee], who expressed a severe dislike for Mainwaring and his men, due to the fact that they often curtailed his plans. He referred to Mainwaring as "Napoleon" and the two soon developed an instant dislike for each other, doing more fighting among themselves rather than with the Germans [!]. There was also other regulars including Mrs Pike [Janet Davies], Pike's mother and Wilson's girlfriend, Wilson being Pike's Uncle Arthur. Mrs Fox [Pamela Cundell], a resident of the town who had a long-running relationship with Jones, before the two eventually married in the final episode and OAP Mr Blewitt [Harold Bennett] was also seen many times.

Many guest stars were also seen in the programme including Barbara Windsor ["EastEnders" as a theatre star], Nigel Hawthorne ["Yes Minister" as a man on a bike], Wendy Richard ["EastEnders" as Walker's girlfriend], Carmen Silvera ["Allo Allo" as Mainwaring's lady friend], Geoffrey Hughes ["Coronation Street" as a bridge controller], Phillip Madoc [a German Captain], Peter Butterworth ["Carry On" films as a printer] and Fulton MacKay ["Porridge" as a doctor]. This has to be the best British comedy series of all time and if it doesn't make you laugh, I don't know what will. 10 out of 10! Morning Star :: Dad’s Army is hopelessly funny but never a joke | The People’s Daily Dad’s Army is hopelessly funny but never a joke posted by Morning Star in Features MARK PERRYMAN questions a version of English patriotism that airbrushes out the WWII politics of anti-fascism or reduces the Battle of Britain to a football chant NINETEEN sixty-eight was a tumultuous year.

The Tet offensive in Vietman, the civil rights movement, the May events of “Paris, London, Rome, Berlin, We shall fight, we will win” and the Prague Spring. This was also the year, April 15 to be precise, that unarguably Britain’s most loved TV comedy series, Dad’s Army, was broadcast for the very first time. Quite remarkably almost 50 years on, never-ending repeats from the nine original series are still being broadcast as primetime Saturday-night TV. Over Christmas a drama-documentary closely based on fact We’re Doomed: The Dad’s Army Story appeared on BBC, again in primetime. And perhaps most amazing of all Dad’s Army has been remade into a new feature film, not reinvented for a 2016 audience but recreated to be as close as possible to the original version. That very first appearance of the Walmington-on-Sea volunteers featured Jones the butcher sabotaging any threat of a nazi invasion by reversing the road signs “To the town” and “To the sea.” Of course the result was obvious: a local motorcyclist stops, takes now the wrong turning and off camera there is a loud splash. A comedy classic has begun.

It is easy to mock but a decisive connection is made via Dad’s Army with the popular front against nazism which is ever-present among all the English slapstick humour. The bank manager, his hard-pressed chief cashier and the most junior of junior cashiers, the butcher, the miserabilist undertaker who is an English coastline economic migrant from Scotland, the pensioner, the local ducker and diver, the verger and his precious church hall, the busybody greengrocer. What brought them all together? The defence of Britain and all it meant to them from all that they feared nazi rule would do in the name of hate. Only a few years previously Oswald Mosley and his British Union of Fascists was being cheered on by the Daily Mail — Hurrah for the Blackshirts. Despite the best efforts of the stalwarts of Cable Street, even in the autumn of 1939 after the declaration of war Mosley was still able to attract crowds to his “peace rallies” numbering in their thousands. The mood of appeasement remained ever-present, spearheaded by the Tory foreign secretary Lord Halifax.

The middle-class and the very English pomposity of Captain Mainwaring of 1940 is too easily confused with the nasty populism of Ukip of 2016 but this is to seriously misunderstand and misrepresent what Walmington-on-Sea’s finest were all about. These were ordinary men (women, apart from Mrs Pike and Mrs Fox, are almost entirely absent) doing extraordinary things and, in the course of this, reinventing what Britain could become. The selfless sacrifice of Mainwaring’s volunteers in the face of a nazi blitzkrieg that to date had laid waste to all resistance in its path is remarkable. In 1941 Hitler would launch Operation Barbarossa and do the same to any resistance in his way on the Eastern Front — until Stalingrad started the turning of the tide of course. The sacrifice is obvious in every episode, the heroism perhaps less so, although when a washed up U-boat commander tries to take over their seaside town Mainwaring’s epic instruction when the nazi demands the young private’s name — “Don’t Tell him Pike” — creates perhaps the show’s funniest moment of all.

Never mind, the fierce and heroic resistance is obvious in Mainwaring’s voice and puffed-up chest. No fascist was going to push old blighty around. Of course class divisions remain within the platoon as they did right across the war effort. Although it is the public-school educated Sergeant Wilson who invariably loses out in the battle of will and leadership with the grammar-school educated Captain Mainwaring. It is, however, on the ideological front that in the fictionalised Walmington-on-Sea and the real Britain of 1939-45 that an ideological battle was being fought and won. A popular mood of co-operation, the common anti-fascist cause and a wide recognition that a society led by and benefitting solely those most used to being in charge was no way to win either the war, or the peace. All of this created the basis for Labour’s 1945 landslide including the election of two Communist Party MPs and the electoral defeat of Churchill’s Tory Party. We’ll never know whether the Walmington-on-Sea constituency went Labour. Countless similar seats certainly did, but we can be sure that for at least a time the town wasn’t the place it was pre-1939.

There is a danger in dismissing the cult of nostalgia that Dad’s Army represented both in 1968 and in today’s version that we lose the meaning of that moment. Mainwaring, Wilson, Jones, Frazer, Godfrey, Pike and Walker were in their own way the most popular Popular Front of them all. Harking back to WWII has crated a peculiar version of English patriotism. The politics of anti-fascism are airbrushed out. The Labour victory in 1945 despite Churchill’s wartime leadership scarcely mentioned. The Battle of Britain reduced to a football chant: “Ten German bombers and the RAF from England shot them down.” what kind of tribute is that? WWII memorialising becomes translated into a petty anti-Europeanism framed by a resentment at France, but most particularly Germany but not Britain being the dominant forces in European politics. Dad’s Army gives us an alternative model. Unlike that other long-running BBC comedy set in WWII Allo Allo, the Germans rarely make an appearance and their hateful fascism is never trivialised or turned into a misjudged excuse for a laugh. Mainwaring’s platoon are hopelessly funny but never a joke.

The opening credits spelt out what was at stake in 1940, Britain versus the swastika making its mark across Europe. This was an anti-nazi war not England v Germany of ’66 vintage and since. Dad’s Army was broadcast for nine years — 1968-1977. Its ending pre-dates the rise and triumph of Thatcherism. It was under Maggie that Europhobia, or more accurately Germanophobia, came to define the Tory right and would eventually create the basis for Ukip’s growth too. Given Ukip’s heartland support lies in England’s left-behind coastal towns it is too easy to rewrite Walmington-on-Sea’s Mainwaring as Thatcher, or Farage, incarnate. But no, rather this was a platoon of community, common cause and, if called upon, no little courage. You have been watching? The people v fascism. Philosophy Football’s 2016 range of Dad’s Army T-shirts are available from or call (01255) 552-412 to order. Related Tags: It looks like you've got Adblock Plus installed.

The Morning Star relies on advertising revenue — please consider unsubscribing or placing us on Adblock Plus' whitelist. Job Listings People's Press Printing Society Owned By Our Readers We're a reader-owned co-operative, which means you can become part of the paper too by buying shares in the People’s Press Printing Society. Philosophy Football 'Don't Tell Him Pike!' 01.02.2016 Mark Perryman of Philosophy Football describes Dad’s Army as the most popular front of all 1968 was a tumultuous year. The Tet Offensive, the civil rights movement, the May events of ‘Paris, London, Rome, Berlin, We shall fight, we will win’ and the Prague Spring. This was also the year, 15th April to be precise, that Dad’s Army, unarguably Britain’s most loved TV comedy series, was broadcast for the very first time. Quite remarkably almost fifty years on never-ending repeats from the nine original series are still being broadcast as primetime Saturday night TV. Over Christmas a drama-documentary closely based on fact We’re Doomed : The Dad’s Army Story appeared on BBC, again in prime-time.

And perhaps most amazing of all Dad’s Army has been remade into a new feature film , not reinvented for a 2016 audience but recreated to be as close as possible to the original version. That very first appearance of the Walmington-on-Sea volunteers featured Jones the butcher sabotaging any threat of a Nazi invasion by reversing the road signs ‘To the town’ and ‘To the sea’ . Of course the result was obvious, a local motorcyclist stops, takes now the wrong turning and off camera there is a loud splash. A comedy classic has begun. It is easy to mock but a decisive connection is made via Dad’s Army with the Popular Front against Nazism which is ever-present amongst all the English slapstick humour. The Bank Manager, his hard-pressed Chief Cashier and the most junior of junior cashiers, the butcher, the miserabilist undertaker who is an English coastline economic migrant from Scotland, the pensioner, the local ducker and diver, the vicar, the verger and their precious Church Hall, the busybody greengrocer. What brought them all together? The defence of Britain and all it meant to them from all that they feared Nazi rule would do in the name of hate.

Only a few years previously Oswald Mosley and his British Union of Fascists was being cheered on by the Daily Mail ‘Hurrah for the Blackshirts’. Despite the best efforts of the stalwarts of Cable Street even in the autumn of 1939 after the declaration of war Mosley was still able to attract crowds to his so-called ‘peace rallies’ numbering in their thousands. The mood of appeasement remained ever-present spearheaded by the Tories’ Foreign Secretary, Lord Halifax. The middle-class , and very English, pomposity of Captain Mainwaring of 1940 is too easily confused with the nasty populism of UKiP 2016 but this is to seriously misunderstand and misrepresent what Walmington-on-Sea’s finest were all about. These were ordinary men (women, apart from Mrs Pike and Mrs Fox are almost entirely absent) doing extraordinary things and in the course of this reinventing what Britain could become. The selfless sacrifice of Mainwaring’s volunteers in the face of a Nazi Blitzkrieg that to date had laid waste to all resistance in its path is remarkable.

In 1941 Hitler would launch Operation Barbarossa and do the same to any resistance in his way on the Eastern Front, until Stalingrad started the turning of the tide of course. The sacrifice is obvious in every episode, the heroism perhaps less so, although when a washed up U-Boat Commander tries to take over their seaside town Mainwaring’s epic order after the Nazi demands his young private’s name ‘Don’t Tell him Pike’ creates perhaps the show’s funniest moment of all. Never mind, the fierce and heroic resistance is obvious in Mainwaring’s voice and puffed up chest, no fascist was going to push old blighty around. Of course class divisions remain within the platoon, as they did right across the war effort. But it is the public-school educated Sergeant Wilson who invariably loses out in the battle of will and leadership to the grammar-school educated Captain Mainwaring. It is however on the ideological front that in the fictionalised Walmington-on-Sea and the real Britain of 1939-45 a battle of ideas was being fought, and won.

A popular mood of co-operation, the common anti-fascist cause and a wide recognition that a society led by and benefitting solely those most used to being in charge was no way to win either the war, or the peace. All of this created the basis for Labour’s 1945 landslide including the election of two Communist Party MPs, and the electoral defeat of Churchill’s Tory Party. We’ll never know whether the Walmington-on-Sea constituency went Labour, countless similar seats certainly did, but we can be sure that for at least a time the town wasn’t the place it was pre-1939. There is a danger in dismissing the cult of nostalgia that Dad’s Army represented both in 1968 and in today’s version that we lose the meaning of that moment. Mainwaring, Wilson, Jones, Frazer, Godfrey, Pike & Walker were in their own way the most popular Popular Front of them all. Harking back to World War Two has created a peculiar version of English patriotism. The politics of anti-fascism are airbrushed out. The Labour victory in ‘45 despite Churchill’s wartime leadership scarcely mentioned.

The Battle of Britain reduced to a football chant ‘Ten German Bombers and the RAF from England shot them down’ what kind of ill-informed tribute is that? World War Two memorialising becomes translated into a petty anti-Europeanism framed by a resentment at France ,and particularly Germany, but not Britain being the dominant forces in European politics. Dad’s Army gives us an alternative framework of understanding Britain then, and now. Unlike that other long-running BBC comedy set in World War Two Allo Allo the Germans rarely make an appearance and thus their fascism is never trivialised or turned into a misjudged excuse for a laugh. Mainwaring’s platoon are hopelessly funny but they are a joke. The opening credits spelt out what was at stake in 1940, Britain versus the swastika making its mark across Europe. This was an anti-nazi war not England vs Germany of ’66 vintage and ever since. Dad’s Army was broadcast for 9 years, 1968-1977. Its ending pre-dates the rise and triumph of Thatcherism.

It was under Maggie that Europhobia, or more accurately Germanophobia, came to define the Tory Right and would eventually create the basis for UKiP’s growth too. Given UKiP’s heartland support lies in England’s left behind coastal towns it is too easy to rewrite Walmington-on-Sea’s Mainwaring as Thatcher, or Farage, incarnate. But no, rather this was a platoon of community, common cause and if called-upon no little courage. You have been watching? The people vs fascism. Philosophy Football’s 2016 range of Dad’s Army T-shirts are available from If you shopped with us before October 1st 2015. Please read this message regarding checkout Dad's Army Movie Reviews, Analysis, Questions, and Answers - MovieQUA Year Released General Plot (no spoilers) Popular BBC comedy series set in the fictional south coast seaside town of Walmington-On-Sea during World War 2. Alternating moments of gentle character comedy with broad slapstick, it recounts the misadventures of the local voluntary defence force (or 'Home Guard') consisting of men too old or 'unfit' for military service.

They are led by the pompous Mainwaring, manager of the local bank, and consist of the suave, mild-mannered Sergeant Wilson , Lance-Corporal Jones, the town's butcher and an old soldier prone to hysteria, cockney spiv Walker, dour Scots undertaker Frazer, gentle, elderly and incontinent Godfrey and dim-witted mummy's boy, Pike, whose mother is 'friendly' with Wilson. They are based in the Church hall where there is much friction between Mainwaring, the effeminate Vicar, his creeping Verger and ARP Warden Hodges (the grocer) who calls Mainwaring 'Napoleon' and strongly dislikes him. The 80 episodes (the last 68 made in colour) have been frequently repeated, many are available on video and there was a 1971 Cinema version. A British institution, familiar to most people throughout the country.

Try to introduce the movie without revealing crucial plot points Random Movie Facts Strange or interesting facts about Dad's Army Poster Don't Tell Him Pike | The Huffington Post Don't Tell Him Pike 04/02/2016 17:45 | Updated 04 February 2016 Mark Perryman Co-founder of the self-styled 'sporting outfitters of intellectual distinction' aka Philosophy Football 1968 was a tumultuous year. The Tet Offensive, the civil rights movement, the May events of 'Paris, London, Rome, Berlin, We shall fight, we will win' and the Prague Spring. This was also the year, 15th April to be precise, that Dad's Army, unarguably Britain's most loved TV comedy series, was broadcast for the very first time. Quite remarkably almost 50 years on never-ending repeats from the nine original series are still being broadcast as primetime Saturday night TV. Over Christmas a drama-documentary closely based on fact We're Doomed : The Dad's Army Story appeared on BBC, again in prime-time.

And perhaps most amazing of all Dad's Army has been remade into a new feature film, not reinvented for a 2016 audience but recreated to be as close as possible to the original version. That very first appearance of the Walmington-on-Sea volunteers featured Jones the butcher sabotaging any threat of a Nazi invasion by reversing the road signs 'To the town' and 'To the sea' . Of course the result was obvious, a local motorcyclist stops, takes now the wrong turning and off camera there is a loud splash. A comedy classic has begun. It is easy to mock but a decisive connection is made via Dad's Army with the Popular Front against Nazism which is ever-present amongst all the English slapstick humour. The Bank Manager, his hard-pressed Chief Cashier and the most junior of junior cashiers, the butcher, the miserabilist undertaker who is an English coastline economic migrant from Scotland, the pensioner, the local ducker and diver, the vicar and verger and their precious Church Hall, the busybody greengrocer. What brought them all together? The defence of Britain and all it meant to them from all that they feared Nazi rule would do in the name of hate.

Only a few years previously Oswald Mosley and his British Union of Fascists was being cheered on by the Daily Mail 'Hurrah for the Blackshirts'. Despite the best efforts of the stalwarts of Cable Street even in the autumn of 1939 after the declaration of war Mosley was still able to attract crowds to his so-called 'peace rallies' numbering in their thousands. The mood of appeasement remained ever-present, spearheaded by the Tories' Foreign Secretary, Lord Halifax. The middle-class , and very English, pomposity of Captain Mainwaring of 1940 is too easily confused with the nasty populism of UKiP 2016 but this is seriously to misunderstand and misrepresent what Walmington-on-Sea's finest were all about. These were ordinary men (women, apart from Mrs Pike and Mrs Fox are almost entirely absent) doing extraordinary things and in the course of this reinventing what Britain could become. The selfless sacrifice of Mainwaring's volunteers in the face of a Nazi Blitzkrieg that to date had laid waste to all resistance in its path is remarkable.

In 1941 Hitler would launch Operation Barbarossa and do the same to any resistance in his way on the Eastern Front, until Stalingrad started the turning of the tide of course. The sacrifice is obvious in every episode, the heroism perhaps less so. When a washed up U-Boat Commander tries to take over their seaside town Mainwaring's epic instruction when the Nazi demand his young private's name 'Don't Tell him Pike' creates perhaps the show's funniest moment of all. But the fierce and heroic resistance is obvious in Mainwaring's voice and puffed up chest, no fascist was going to push old blighty around. Of course class divisions remain within the platoon, as they did right across the war effort. Although it is the public-school educated Sergeant Wilson who invariably loses out in the battle of will and leadership with the grammar-school educated Captain Mainwaring. The popular unity against Hitler was accompanied by an ideological front that in both the fictionalised Walmington-on-Sea and the real Britain of 1939-45 questinoned what kind of society was being defended.

This combined a national mood of co-operation, the common anti-fascist cause and a wide recognition that a society led by and benefitting solely benefiting those most used to being in charge was no way to win either the war, or the peace. All of this created the basis for Labour's 1945 landslide including the election of two Communist Party MPs, and the electoral defeat of Churchill's Tory Party. We'll never know whether the Walmington-on-Sea constituency went Labour, countless similar seats certainly did, but we can be sure that for at least a time the town wasn't the place it was pre-1939. There is a danger in dismissing the cult of nostalgia that Dad's Army represented both in 1968 and in today's version that we lose the meaning of that moment. Mainwaring, Wilson, Jones, Frazer, Godfrey, Pike & Walker were in their own way the most popular Popular Front of them all. Unlike that other long-running BBC comedy set in World War Two Allo Allo the Germans rarely make an appearance and thus their hateful fascism is never trivialised or turned into a misjudged excuse for a laugh.

Mainwaring's platoon are hopelessly funny but never a joke. The opening credits spelt out what was at stake in 1940, Britain versus the swastika making its mark across Europe. This was an anti-nazi war not England vs Germany of '66 vintage and ever since. Dad's Army ended in 1977, pre-dating the rise and triumph of Thatcherism. It was under Maggie that Europhobia, or more accurately Germanophobia, came to define the Tory Right and would eventually create the basis for UKiP's growth too. Given UKiP's heartland support lies in England's left behind coastal towns it is too easy to rewrite Walmington-on-Sea's Mainwaring as Thatcher, or Farage, incarnate. But no, rather this was a platoon of community, common cause and if called-upon no little courage. You have been watching? The people vs fascism.

Philosophy Football's 2016 range of Dad's Army T-shirts are available from Dad's Army Season 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 Download TV Series Dad's Army in the format (HD, Divx, DVD, ipod/iphone/ipad). Buy TV series Dad's Army and watch online Description ▼ Mainwaring is extremely annoyed that all the platoon - except Godfrey, who was too slow - have used up all their ammunition firing in vain at a low-flying German aeroplane. An inquiry is ordered - along with a new case of ammunition, which duly arrives. The captain in charge of the inquiry, which takes place in the church hall in competition with choir practice, feels it a waste of his time but talks the men through what happened. Jones says he gave the order to shoot. Mainwaring corrects him by saying 'Fire', which the platoon does, making a hole in the roof. Description ▼ After Mainwaring complains that the men's saluting is sloppy a runaway barrage balloon appears with the verger clinging onto it.

He is rescued and various people, including Godfrey's sister Cissie, are asked to hang onto it until Mainwaring takes charge. Unfortunately for him it takes off in the breeze with him holding onto the other end of its rope, dragging him through trees and a haystack until it stops on a railway bridge. The men are about to secure it but then an officer comes by and in order to perfect the saluting so beloved of Mainwaring they have to let go of the balloon.. . Description ▼ Pike's work is suffering because he is distracted by his girl-friend Violet, whom Mainwaring regards as common as her mother used to clean for him. Furthermore at the upcoming platoon dance Pike is going to announce his engagement to her, which alarms Wilson as Mavis would never let her baby go. Mainwaring arrives at the dance with a black eye after a fight with his wife and, despite efforts by Jones - doing impressions - to stall Pike, the lad announces his big news. Mavis faints. Later she locks Wilson out of the house for not telling her of her son's plans and he joins Mainwaring, also shut out by his wife, in the church hall.

Pike declares the engagement off after Mavis has thrown a bucket of water over him. Description ▼ It is revealed that Private Godfrey was a Conscientious Objector in the First World war, leading Mainwaring and some of the platoon to brand him as a coward. However, during an exercise in which Mainwaring collapses with smoke inhalation, it is Godfrey who, at risk to himself, rescues him. When Mainwaring and the others go to visit Godfrey, recovering in bed, they see a photo of him with a military medal, won in the First World War when he was a brave stretcher bearer who saved many lives. Mainwaring is ashamed and asks Godfrey to be the platoon's official First Aid representative. Description ▼ There is to be a parade through Walmington-on-Sea to commemorate Spitfire Week and, after watching a newsreel, the platoon decide it would be a splendid idea to have a mascot. Private Sponge farms sheep and the men try to catch his ram but it eludes them every time. Walker provides a goat but it is a skinny, pitiful creature which eats Mainwaring's five pound note.

So there is no mascot for the parade, which turns into a race as the platoon, Hodges and his wardens, the verger and his Sea Scouts and the volunteer nurses all march faster and faster to be at the head of the procession until they all break into a run. Description ▼ Dissent in the ranks follows after a foot inspection as a result of which Mainwaring decides the platoon need their feet toughening up and proposes bare foot football as well as a twenty mile route march. To prevent the march the men hatch a plan whereby they will go into the shoe shop from where Mainwaring has ordered his new boots and substitute a size smaller which will pinch his feet and put him off the idea of a long march. What they had failed to appreciate is that he already had a pair in his own size in for repair, which the shoe-maker returns to him before the march. Description ▼ The platoon are on night watch in a hut by the beach waiting for Pike to bring their tea but Pike has got himself tangled up on barbed wire on the beach in the middle of a minefield.

Whilst waiting for an engineer to come and free him, Mainwaring and Frazer mount a rescue attempt of their own, to be beaten to it by Godfrey. Pike is freed and when the engineer turns up he tells everyone that Pike was never in danger because the minefield was some two hundred yards further along the beach - though Jones knows better! Description ▼ The platoon is to guard a prisoner of war camp housing Italian soldiers and Mainwaring is suspicious because Walker seems rather too friendly with them. However Walker explains that he uses them as cheap labour to mend radios for his customers and they go backwards and forwards in and out of the camp via a tunnel which they have dug beneath the stove. When an inspection is called for and only half the prisoners are available Jones, who is doing the head count, makes them go round twice but the plan is rumbled when the missing half turns up. Description ▼ An elderly ex-soldier called Clarke comes to join the platoon and, by coincidence, it turns out that he and Jones were in the same regiment in Sudan back in the 1890s.

However he paints a picture of a cowardly Jones who left him to his fate when he was captured by Dervishes, and soon after Jones receives two feathers, signifying cowardice, through the post. The corporal then tells his story in a flashback where all the participants look like members of the present platoon. He and Clarke were indeed captured but he rescued Clarke and kept quiet about his affair with the colonel's wife. Mainwaring is satisfied with Jones's account but before he can confront Clarke, Clarke leaves town, returning his uniform. Description ▼ After Mainwaring announces that women are to join the Home Guard several lady friends of the platoon come forward, as does Fiona Gray, an elegant, quietly-spoken widow who has brought her mother down from London to escape the bombs. Mainwaring is very taken by her and contrives to have morning coffee in a local tea-shop she regularly uses, where they are interrupted by various platoon members. They are seen out a lot together and Wilson tries in vain to tell Mainwaring that he is the subject of gossip. Fiona realizes this and so decides to return to London without telling Mainwaring, who arrives at the station in time to say goodbye to her.

Description ▼ When the Home Guard platoon is challenged to a cricket match by the air wardens, Mainwaring appoints himself captain and gives the usual inept lecture to his team. They can only hope to make up, in effort, what they presumably lack in everything else, even uniform dress. Hodges, however, signs up as 'warden' - his secret weapon: star player Ernie C. Egan. The vicar and his unsympathetic verger prove unexperienced umpires. Oblivious of most men's obvious physical limitations, Mainwaring's 'brave' approach runs into a record disaster score. However Ernie strains his arm, so the wardens are a man down and the score starts equaling up. Description ▼ Upstart Meanwaring is furious to learn that his chief clerk Arthur Wilson is leaving to become manager of the nearby branch of the bank in Eastgate, where HQ has also appointed him platoon commander with a promotion to Second Lieutenant. While everyone else congratulates the amiable gentleman, Meanwaring's jealous, socially inferior superior implies it's just the old boys network.

He promotes Pike chief clerk, and orders him to copy for all platoon members a promotion to sergeant, meant only for Jones, but so phrased each thinks to get three stripes, creating a Mexican army version of platoon assembly. Alas the war shows its ugliest side. Description ▼ Once more, the civic vicar's hospitality for both Home guard and ARP forces the rival corps' men to cohabit in the church. This time captain Mainwaring and chief warden Hodges even have to share the vicar's desk at the same time. Their men try everything to push the others away, and end up lighting the chimney so ineptly that the church tower catches fire, making it a prime air raid target. As that would render them the laughing stock of the county, they decide to put out the fire on their own, with their usual mixture of bravery and utter bumbling incompetence.

Description ▼ Already peeved because Captain Square has drawn attention to the fact that he is the only member of the platoon not to have medals - except Pike, who has his scout's badges - Mainwaring is happy to take on the challenge of beating Square's Eastgate platoon in an initiative test, a race to an old tower where the winner is the first to fly their flag. Jones gets a touch of malaria whilst driving the van and Hodges deliberately stops them to give Eastgate the advantage, after which a stand-off on a narrow bridge leads to Hodges getting pushed into the river. The Walmington men are the first to the tower though Mainwaring accidentally pulls the rope off the flagpole and Jones, drunk on the tonic wine Godfrey gave him to cure his malaria, almost falls to his death. The Eastgate platoon are the first to unfurl a flag but it is the Walmington platoon's flag, giving Mainwaring's platoon victory. Afterwards Mainwaring learns from Walker how this came about. Description ▼ A bomb hits the gasworks where Godfrey and Walker are on duty and the platoon and Hodges go to rescue them from a small room in which Godfrey is asleep.

Jones,who is in an outer chamber,slams the door,bringing the roof down and everyone except Jones is in the small room,which is rapidly filling with water. Eventually,after Hodges and Pike both get soaked,they escape from the cell, but,thanks to Godfrey shutting the door so that nobody catches a cold,they are till trapped in the building and Wilson has to wade through the water and out of the hatch to summon help. Description ▼ The platoon are at the cinema watching a Greta Garbo film but only Mainwaring stands to attention for the NationalAnthem and gets knocked over by the others rushing for the exit. On the bus home they encounter Hodges,who is rude to the bus conductress. Mainwaring defends her but again gets knocked down as the men hurry to get off for last orders. After getting the men to stand for the anthem on parade next day - though Wilson accidentally plays the German anthem - Mainwaring falls out with his wife and has a toasted cheese supper with Wilson and Jones. He falls asleep in his air raid shelter and dreams that he is Napoleon, Wilson is Wellington and the conductress is Josephine. As in the events of the previous night he gets knocked over.

When he wakes up his wife has left him a note to tell him off for not coming home. Description ▼ Rumours abound when Sergeant Wilson is seen with his arm around an attractive young woman in a WREN's uniform, causing an argument between himself and Mainwaring who catches him sleeping off a hangover in the church hall. Suddenly pigeons appear - Walker has got them to sell to Jones in the absence of other meat but he has yet to kill them, which he eventually does. However,a radio report reveals the disappearance of pigeons from Trafalgar Square,so he hides them in the organ loft and out they fly when Jones plays the organ. The young lady with Wilson is actually his daughter from a brief marriage. Description ▼ During a nightly patrol in terrible weather the platoon runs out of rationed petrol for Jones's van, so they decide to spend the night in an at first sight abandoned house. There Pike, who got drenched, must undress and put on a heraldic garment and, after an accidental fire complicates the hilarious sleeping arrangements all wet again, a bear rug.

Frazer's ghost stories seem to come to life with footsteps once everybody is asleep, but it's just captain Cadbury, a military dog school administrator who lives here with the hounds in training. In the morning friendly Cadbury walks the men back, but is no use when the bloodthirsty half-trained canines get loose. Description ▼ Captain George Meanwaring is delighted when widowed Lady Maltby offers his Home Guard platoon first choice, over Mr. Hodges's A.R.P. Wardens, for the use of her Rolls Royce while she can't get rationed petrol anyway. Its first appearance would be the high-profile visit of a French general who will pin up decorations. To jealous snob Mainwaring's green envy, his bright but unassertive sergeant Arthur Wilson, a warmly greeted relative of the lady who doesn't even notice his name or rank, is also asked by H.Q. to write and deliver the welcome speech for the general, as he alone masters French.

To turn it into a proper staff car, the Rolls must be camouflaged; on the way to the paint shop the lady's driver runs out of petrol at the town hall, so he calls and Frank drags uncle Arthur along with petrol 'commandeered' from Hodges's sidecar. The captain believes them unable and sends the platoon to tow the Rolls; Frazer smells a profit in doing the paint job for less in his funeral establishment, but from then on things go spectacularly wrong... Description ▼ After demonstrating how not to tell a joke, captain Mainwaring isn't amused to hear how his men not only 'visited' all the pubs but accidentally shot a turkey. Finding the owner of the bird in order to pay damages proves ultimately impossible, so the men decide to put their ill-gotten gains to charitable use: a dinner for the senior pensioners. Mainwaring chairing a general purposes committee is a recipe for lengthy and loud proceedings about who does what and how. The dinner still goes well, apart from grumpy ingratitude, and a nasty surprise for Mainwaring, who is Rotary guest speaker later that evening.

Description ▼ The Walmington on Sea Home Guard is excited to be selected to 'act' in a army film, but when it becomes clear they'll play Nazis and how unkind the camera could be, captain Meanwaring refuses 'patriotically' to participate; Frank and Arthur are chosen as German officers. The whole 'cast' is to travel in Jones's butchery van on a hot day, only to be told their scenes are delayed. Against orders, they leave in costume for drinks in a bar, where the landlord is convinced they are enemy troops and informs the warden, who passes the panic message on to the police and the local Home Guard headquarters in church, where he finds only vicar and verger, who help him ring the bells as invasion alert... Description ▼ Despite his mother's advice to get out of service, Pike proudly announces he passed the medical for the real army's recruitment, and he's to become an RAF Airman.

Meanwhile Mainwaring is jealous of Hodges's promise to raise 50 pints in the town's blood drive just to get a fancy certificate, so he rashly pledges 100, despite Wilson's warning, but finds the platoon's health and Hodges's promise of onions leave his team at three! At the last minute, Jones and Frazer bring most surprising 'reinforcements'. Now everybody feels they've earned celebrating with the fish and chips 'surprise' party for Frank's departure, but he willingly withheld a surprise result of his blood donation.. Description ▼ Three months after the bomb on the bank, Mr. George Mainwaring makes a terrible fuzz about the 'undignified' standard government-issue new door for his office, even before it becomes clear the tar paper is also fragile rubbish, ruined within minutes. Alas an early visitor, the Home Guard Colonel, brings a worse concern: Defense is building a new aerodrome for the RAF, and the idyllic cottage Mr. Godfrey lives in with his sisters Dolly and Cissy must be demolished to make room for it, the platoon is asked to break the news before the official notice.

A visit from Mainwaring, Arthur and Pike is most enjoyable, tea and home-made refreshments in the sort of country garden with blooming roses 'just what we are fighting for', but neither has the heart to tell their generous hosts' tiny ancestral paradise is doomed. Now Godfrey's contemporaries are to tell the Nestor, during guard duty, but Frazer only contributes 'Jones had bad news for you'; Godfrey however surprises him- the notice already arrived. Yet Frazer has the biggest surprise, which none of the others is told about, even while they all help the Godfrey family move, because of a deceptive Scottish politician... Description ▼ In preparation for a bivouac weekend, captain Meanwaring gives a lecture, in the vicar's garden as the indoor church premises are spoken for, so the gardener bothers the vicar, who prepares his sermon, about the Home Guardsmen behaving 'improperly'. After lessons in hedgehog-cooking in mud -poor Pike!- putting up two-man tents without making holes in the lawn -poor Pike, Jones and tent- and starting a fire, actually trying not to light it -poor Pike and lawn- it's off to the field.

Alas, Mr. Hodges cheerfully gave a lift to vicar, verger and their troop op Sea Scouts to man a Pirates raft (for the Spitfire fund), running out of petrol so he has to sleep in his van, more undesired neighbors for Meanwaring. The three Nazi crewman of a German bomber -spotted at night by Frazer- have parachuted down into the river, so once they're detected in the morning Hodges, the only one to speak German, is commandeered at the point of Jones's bayonet to join the RAF-commandeered raft for two rather too watery attempts to capture the 'swines' from their inflated dingy... Description ▼ Mr. George Mainwaring feels his local bank branch can no longer honor Mr. Jones's checks because his account has a five months arrear reaching £50.

After hours the 'financial genius' trio goes trough the shambles that passes for his butchery bookkeeping, but only when the half platoon has assembled in the vicar's office for a 'private' consultation Jones pulls the problem out of his pocket: he is owned £50 by the orphanage, and that's just the last link in a chain of debts and dues, with an extra creditor lurking around when half the village has assembled in church on Meanwaring's summons... Description ▼ His Lordship's butler Perkins makes Captain Mainwaring lose a shooting bet by telling them to stop target practice while his master is asleep. Captain Mainwaring agrees with the platoon's bitter rival warden Hodges that their contribution to the war effort needs more local respect. He accepts a suggestion to simulate a fifth column attack together. The Colonel at HQ reluctantly allows "Operation Wake-Up" so they all dress up as cutthroats and desperadoes. After being ignored by an active army column and three equally shifty-suited men, their only comfort is that Hodges gets a "knuckle-sandwich" by a burly disgruntled customer (who recognized the entire bumbling lot).

However Godfrey, while indisposed in the toilet of vicar's office, overhears Captain Square (Mainwaring's trigger-happy rival) on the telephone believing that the desperadoes are real. Description ▼ Captain Mainwaring's reservations to accept the 'non-combatant' role of umpire in maneuver exercises (as deputy for the Home Guard colonel) quickly disappear when he learns the job comes with a non-assigned staff car. His platoon might be allowed to keep this car, but he makes the mistake of bragging in advance it would be some sort of limousine, so the less grand model gets him generally laughed at. Next Jones' remarks about military car seating etiquette starts an unmusical dance of chairs in it. Pike's eagerness to be allowed in it as runner and general boyish pride are irresponsibly stirred by warden Hodges's niece Sylvia, a regular army driver and the only girl to look at him in times, who besots him to go to the pictures and makes him take the car, ignoring Jones didn't put the petrol in.

Description ▼ Doctor McCeavedy, who signals undertaker Frazer deaths, accidentally discovers his life savings, hundreds of sovereigns, and tells Mainwaring the scrooge should be persuaded to put the fortune in safety. The captain's lecture on money in wartime, after Jones' ludicrous demonstration of fixing bayonets while wearing a gas mask, fails to secure the banker a fat annuity commission, he's even called not trustworthy. However the rumor soon spreads, so after half of Walmington beleaguers Frazer in vain for generosity that never comes, he misses his first parade ever to 'secure' his gold, so they all try to spy where he would bury it at night. Description ▼ Captain Mainwaring gives a 'top secret lecture on the coastal defense warning system his platoon will guard for a weekend, only to learn even the warden knows. Trouble with Jones' van makes them late to relieve regular troops; they set up camp and have porridge in their bumbling fashion. After a nightly air raid, the vicar comes to say mass. Only then do they see a German bomb, caught in the very wires they guard.

Getting it down is a job the GPO turns down, but Mainwaring and other old-timers volunteer themselves, all failing, while wisely reluctant Frank is forced to try more unwise monkey-methods. DAD'S ARMY: BOX SET PART 1 | DVD Movies & TV Shows, DVD Genres, Comedy : JB HI-FI DVD Movies & TV Shows Music DAD'S ARMY: BOX SET PART 1Â Popular BBC comedy series set in the fictional south coast seaside town of Walmington-On-Sea during World War 2. Popular BBC comedy series set in the fictional south coast seaside town of Walmington-On-Sea during World War 2. Customers that bought "DAD'S ARMY: BOX SET PART 1" also viewed SHARKNADO $9.98 (AUD) When a freak tornado swamps Los Angeles, thousands of man-eating sharks are sucked into the swirling vortex, terrorizing the waterlogged populace and flooding the city with shark-infested seawater.

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Question: Which long running BBC comedy was set in the coastal town of Walmington-On-Sea?
Answer: Dad's Army